Under the skirt

No, this is not about Peeping Toms. We’re talking more along the lines of men who are henpecked, silenced, domineered, bullied, cowed, marginalized, or — as the younger generation would say — "whipped" by their female partners; in other words, men who are "under d’saya."

There’s a joke about henpecked men that goes: After his wife had beaten him badly, a man crawled under their marital bed. "Come out this instant!" his wife screamed. "I am man enough to do as I please!" he answered. "I’ll come out when I’m good and ready."

Another one goes: A number of henpecked men were holding an emergency meeting to discuss ways to regain their dignity. A bachelor prankster walked into their midst and said, "Your wives heard of this gathering and are all on their way here to deal with you." All but one panicked and dashed out the door. "He’s the only one with courage to stand up to his wife!" the bachelor exclaimed. But closer examination revealed that he had instantly died of fright.

I find it interesting how we like to joke about this phenomenon when it is, in fact, a delicate issue. When couples bring up who wears the pants in their relationships it actually is a show of intimacy, a kind of performance happily lapped up by onlookers who think it quaint. But beware: this may be nothing more than another of men’s ploys to stroke their own egos. Commonly, we hear men boast that they answer to their wives’ every beck and call, going as far as calling them "Commander" or "Boss"; an outright patronization of their women, if you ask me. They do it with a pronounced smugness, maybe even a smirk, which is a dead giveaway to what they are, in fact, signaling: "Me macho; me grab wife by the hair and drag inside cave."

The genuinely henpecked don’t dare call attention to their plight, even going to calculated lengths to mask the real situation. This is one of the more painful human conditions because henpecking is a form of silencing, a form of oppression and, whether elective or imposed, it is still that.

Isn’t every relationship power-based, after all? I dare say that yes, they are. Be it husband-wife, boyfriend-girlfriend, superior-subordinate, or between peers and family members — what lies at the core of every relationship is the issue of control and who holds it. Of course, given the dynamic nature of relationships, factors affecting the balance are forever shifting. The upper hand does not stay with one single individual for a very long time, but this is the ideal.

Since we are talking about the henpecked man, let us then qualify what he is. There are connotations of helplessness and humiliation attributed to the word "henpecked": implications that the husband lacks the strength to enforce respect traditionally accorded to a husband as head of his household. People say that there are two kinds of henpecked men: the ones who are and the ones who think they are not. But seriously, henpecked men are those who suffer a sheer absence of will; those who have thrown the white flag into the arena where couples engage in a battle of wills. There are a multitude of reasons why such a thing happens. The man could be a dispirited loser, completely resigned to never being able to subdue an overbearing wife; he could have had a domineering mother and therefore doesn’t know how good life can be when spent with an equal; the wife may hold the "silk purse" — the source of the comfortable life he married into; the wife may look like a goddess, truly gorgeous, so he doesn’t mind eating out of the palm of her hand; or he could just very well be "mentally challenged."

Conversely, there are men who appear to be henpecked but aren’t henpecked at all. They are, in fact, the embodiment of total equality in marriage. They are comfortable in their masculinity and are above idiotic things like playing the macho role, seeing no trouble in catering to their wives in the interest of fairness, charity and generosity.

I remember my father’s distant cousin-in-law who was much talked about in the family, specifically for being henpecked. His wife, whose girth was almost double his, had an overpowering personality along with the perfect voice to go with it. Sure, it was cute that she still addressed him as "Sweetheart" even after many years of marriage, albeit not in a syrupy tone. It sounded more like the groan of a dying cow: "Swooooothoooort," in an extended drawl at the lowest alto you can imagine. He trailed her everywhere and ministered to her every need which was mainly for him to hand her a daintily embroidered towel with which to wipe away her sweat. I wondered why he had the patience to attend to her each time until I saw that, when he didn’t, the wife exploded in a temper tantrum that shook the earth. Oh, and about the cache of his infinite patience, you ask? It was directly proportional to her millions stashed in the bank. So would you say he was henpecked or calculating and smart?

And then there was this other couple. The husband looked like your average Joe, but his trophy wife was a darker version of the beauteous Monica Bellucci. The problem was she knew it all too well and therefore capitalized on it. In public, the husband worked himself into a frenzy distracting her from conversations with other men, guarding her tightly, monopolizing all her time and conversation. She basked in all the attention and played this game of cat and mouse with him repeatedly. Once she asked him to find her an ashtray because the ash from her burning cigarette had gotten quite long; he scampered around but failed to find one. To appease her and to avoid dirtying the host’s floor, he cupped his hand and told her to flick the ash into his palm. And she did — without a moment’s hesitation! Solicitous, would you say? Or henpecked? Would you allow an equally gorgeous woman to make an ashtray out of your hand?

A classmate of mine at college, an Asian girl whose father was in the diplomatic corps, found herself the boyfriend of her dreams: a six-foot, redheaded linebacker on the school’s football team who was completely enamored with her! He became her instant chauffeur; she never had to drive herself after they met. If it meant his missing classes to be available for her, he did. The clincher was when he bent down to tie her shoelaces after they had come undone right in front of all his teammates; he literally stooped that low for her. Henpecked or true love? You tell me!

The henpecked man is the abomination of the universal order where the power struggle is inherent in every relationship. In his case, the fulcrum was always tipped to the side of the female. Shame, shame, shame! He was missing out on one of the best things in life: mostly, a jousting of petty, senseless concerns; rarely, a hard-won engagement of principles; occasionally, a battle of bargaining skills; and ultimately, a compromise of self and ego, a coming together of two minds — the most fulfilling culmination of a true relationship.

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E-mail the author at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.